Dread Templar Archetype (for Really Wild West in Starfinder)

This archetype represents one of Badland City’s famed Dread Templars, supernatural law enforcers who focus on punishment and vengeance over peace and prevention. It’s specifically designed for use with the Really Wild West setting hack for the Starfinder Roleplaying Game, but could be used in any campaign using the RPG’s rules.

Dread Templar

Whether you trained at the Acadamance in Badlands City, or was granted Dread Templar powers because someone sold their soul to the Devil (possibly even you), the power of infernal law flows through you, and demands you obey its rules. You may or may not be a Badlands Citizen, depending on your background. One way or the other, you earned your tarnished silver goat’s-head badge, and everything that comes with it.

Infernal Law (Su): [2nd Level] A Dread Templar is infused with the power of hellish order, as seen through the lens of federal US law. If you are aware that a creature is with certainty an unpunished criminal, you must do your best to see the criminal is punished in accordance with US law for its crimes (regardless of whether US law has jurisdiction over the crime). If you are aware of a victim of a crime, you must do your best to gain vengeance for the victim. On any day when you become aware of an unpunished criminal or unavenged victim and don’t act to further procurement of punishment or vengeance, you lose all benefits of this archetype until the next time the moon is at its apex (“High Moon”).

If you see an act, you automatically know if that act is illegal under US federal law, and if so what the minimum and maximum sentences are for those convicted of that crime. If you carry out punishment for such an act, you know if the punishment you carried out is equivalent to such sentences (as determined by the GM). (A GM can simplify the legal code into misdemeanors, which are punished by a 10-100 credit fine or a week confined; crimes, which are punished by a 100-1,000 credit fine or up to a month confined, and felonies which are punished by confinement of a year or more or more serious loss, such as death. Money taken from fines is not considered punishment of the Dread Templar or other PCs keeps it—it must be turned over to nearby legal local authorities or the US federal government.)

You gain a +2 bonus to Diplomacy checks with law officers, and a +2 bonus to Intimidate checks with criminals.

You also carry the power of hellfire within you. Whenever you make an attack, you may choose for half the damage to be infernal fire, which is an untyped form of magic damage. If the attack already deals two types of damage, replace one of them with hellfire (you decide which damage type to replace each time you use this ability).

Lesser Sentence (Su): [4th]

This alternate class feature is optional. A Dread Templar may choose not to take it, in which case they gain their class’s normal class feature for 4th level. Alternative they may choose to take it at another level archetypes can gain alternate class features, giving up the normal class feature, as long as they do not gain another archetype alternate class feature at the same level.

Whenever you make an attack that kills a creature you are aware has committed an unpunished crime, you may choose to invoke a lesser sentence. The creature (even if unconscious) has the option to choose not to die, and to instead impose upon itself an appropriate sentence for its crime, as outlined under US federal law (as adjudicated by the GM). If for some reason the creature is forced to end its sentence prior to it being completed, it dies.

Manacles (Su): [6th]

This alternate class feature is optional. A Dread Templar may choose not to take it, in which case they gain their class’s normal class feature for 6th level. Alternative they may choose to take it at another level archetypes can gain alternate class features, giving up the normal class feature, as long as they do not gain another archetype alternate class feature at the same level.

When you succeed at a melee attack against a target you are aware has committed an unpunished crime, you may also for it to make a Reflex save or have a pair of hellfire manacles bind it. On a failed save the creature gains the entangled condition. It can escape these manacles as if they were physical manacles, with the DC of any appropriate skill check being 15 + 1-1/2 your character level.

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About okcstephens

Owen K.C. Stephens
Owen Kirker Clifford Stephens is the Starfinder Design Lead for Paizo Publishing, the Freeport and Pathfinder RPG developer for Green Ronin, a developer for Rite Publishing, and the publisher and lead genius of Rogue Genius Games.
Owen has written game material for numerous other companies, including Wizards of the Coast, Kobold Press, White Wolf, Steve Jackson Games and Upper Deck.
He also consults, freelances, and in the off season, sleeps.